Listen

Two Trees

Do

• Read 2 Corinthians 5

• You’re either a good tree or a bad tree. Make a list of the good fruit you would like to see in your life, and be specific. Spend some time meditating on the fact that God has now created you to bear this fruit effortlessly by the Holy Spirit. Consider that all the bad fruit in your life is only there because you are still renewing your mind to the fact that, in Christ, you are a good tree.  

Read

TRIUNE GRACE FOR THE TRIPLE CURSE

God’s method of salvation is supplied to us by what I would like to call a triune grace. This triune grace is the saving power of God manifested to each believer to deliver from sin, sickness, death, and all other collateral damage from the Fall of Man. John G. Lake in describing the works of the devil said this:

“Sin, sickness and death are doomed, doomed to death by the decree of Christ Jesus. Sin, sickness and death are the devil’s triumvirate--the triple curse. Heaven is the absence of this triple curse; heaven is sinlessness, sicklessness and deathlessness. This is the ultimate of Christ’s redemption.” ²

Now hear how the Bible speaks of Christ’s victory over the devil:

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Cor. 15:26)

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8)

God’s triune grace brings the reality of heaven to our lives and is distributed in many aspects of our salvation. Initially and instantly, the first aspect of this triune grace is manifest in what we call justification, the saving of our spirits from the penalty of death. The second part of this triune grace is distributed by God through sanctification, which is God’s way of imparting the righteousness of Christ to our very souls. The final aspect of this triune grace is called glorification and will not be fully manifest until Christ returns and the “mortal puts on the immortal” (1 Cor. 15:54).

So if justification is our rebirth back into the image and likeness of God, then our sanctification is our growing up and learning how

to think, act, and feel as a child of God. And, finally, that makes our glorification, the fullness of which we will experience when Christ returns, the completion and maturation of what we were always meant to be. We see, through this explanation, that God’s idea of salvation is much more deep and complete than simply going to heaven when we die.

IF JUSTIFICATION IS OUR REBIRTH INTO THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD, THEN OUR SANCTIFICATION IS OUR GROWING UP INTO THINKING, ACTING, AND FEELING AS A CHILD OF GOD.

Take day 14 to yourself.